


croon to me strobe light love songs

by weatheredlaw



Series: everything in threes [2]
Category: Iron Man (Comic), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M, dancing pepper is free, gardening and such
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-14
Updated: 2012-08-14
Packaged: 2017-11-12 03:01:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now she can throw herself at the skyline. She is allowed to do that, when she's angry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	croon to me strobe light love songs

**Author's Note:**

> continuation of the series i did not mean to write. one more to come because of threesomes.

_so this is what you meant, when you said that you were spent_

 

The clouds don't part when she bursts through them, thinking she might touch the sun today, if she can make it past the stratosphere. Up here it's just lonely, broken ozone, nothing worth writing about, cold and starting to mess with her systems. Pepper turns off the thrusters and free falls for a long time, until JARVIS turns them back on without asking.

"I wasn't going to."

"Only looking after you, ma'am. As I was instructed."

 

 

Pepper never asks to see what Tony wrote the night he died. She doesn't want to know if there's a letter, or a will. She is no longer acting CEO, but the new guy sends a lot of emails that Pepper ignores. She fired her assistant a week ago. She keeps a day planner in her purse, but it's mostly empty. Pepper spends a lot of her time not watching the time.

She only counts the weeks. The three weeks. Weeks until Bruce comes back.

She knows he's there before she sees him, the distinct sound of his heavy feet crossing the wood floors of her apartment sending her flying out of her room and into his arms. He drops his bags and lifts her off the ground and it might have been beautiful if it weren't so desperate. He bends her over and fucks her on the back of the couch, their clothes still hanging on them as he comes against the back of her legs.

Pepper pulls them both into the shower, running her hands through his hair and checking his body under the spray. "You're hurt," she murmurs, pressing her lips against a bruise on his inner thigh. "Here. And here--" A cut along his hip. "And there--" Another bruise blossoming over his shoulder. 

Bruce presses his lips to her nose. "I missed you, too."

 

 

Pepper sometimes makes Bruce talk about Betty. He always does, his tongue moving around words like he's reading her a poem.

"A long time ago, I fell in love."

_Love. Monster. Peace._

Pepper counts the freckles on Bruce's shoulder.

_Thirty. Sixty. Ninety._

"Tell me everything you're going to do to me." Pepper straddles his hips. "Everything."

 

 

Sometimes Pepper pretends to be asleep, listening to Bruce and Jim talk above her. They talk about Tony, a lot, because Bruce only knew him a little, and Rhodey only knew him for forever. They talk about Pepper, too. They talk about each other. And their words are fingers brushing over skin, Bruce's lips at the hollow of Rhodey's neck, Jim's teeth on Bruce's hip. And if she touches herself while she listens, they never say a word.

Usually she wakes up, reaches for them, and they come to her. 

_You're safe, you're okay, you're alive._

Said to no one in particular, by no one in particular.

 

 

Pepper wants to go dancing.

Tony used to take her. He was a terrible dancer, but he'd go with her, because he understood the need to be completely free. Pepper could not fly herself into the sun, not then. She couldn't throw a tantrum and wear a million dollars worth of tech and be a horse's ass and scare everyone away from her until she was completely alone. Pepper could not be Tony. So she danced.

Now she can throw herself at the skyline. She is allowed to do that, when she's angry. But tonight, she is desperate for something different thrumming in her veins. An anonymous, red, pulsing beat. Something that infects her and ruins her and leaves her high. 

So she goes dancing, alone the first time. No one knows who she is. Even now, she can't be Tony. Even now, she still doesn't want to. The club is dark, flashing with orange and gold and blue light, casting everyone around her as a stranger in her own show. Here there is no space between one body and the next, and Pepper has her arms wrapped around a woman she doesn't know, someone's knees knocking into her every few seconds. The girl is lovely and rail thin and wears too much eyeshadow. Red and gold. 

_You're like someone else when you're out here._ Tony's mouth is not against her ear and he is not talking to her. Pepper cannot hear him. She can't see him. But there's an arm reaching out around her and it feels like him and Pepper melts into it and closes her eyes and doesn't hear the music anymore. _It's sort of amazing. Sexy, for sure. Beautiful, too. More than anything._

"You left."

_Did I? That's weird. I don't remember doing that to you._

"You did."

_I promised I'd keep you safe. I keep doing that, I'm not really gone._

Pepper pushes herself out of the club and retches on the sidewalk, shivering and sobbing and clawing. She rubs her hands raw on the brick of the building, and the bouncer tells her to beat it, take your ass home. She walks a block before a car pulls up next to her and stops, windows going down.

"Pep." 

Happy.

He puts her in the car and they drive for an hour, until Pepper has stopped shaking and she can sit up again. He passes her some water.

"Jim sent me."

_You shouldn't go dancing alone, Pep._

 

 

Bruce puts her to bed, thumb ghosting over her temple, fingers sliding over her bare shoulder. He kisses her arm. Here, and here, and here. 

"Don't scare me like that." Jim appears next to them, turns out the lights, and they sleep. 

 

 

In another club, purple and cold and deafening, Pepper has Rhodey behind her, his mouth on the back of her neck, and Bruce pulled in close, one of his hands twisted in Jim's, the other over her heart.

 _You shouldn't go dancing alone, Pep._

Good advice, she thinks, and slides down the length of their bodies and up again, her heart pounding in time with the music, fingers scratching a twisted, healing rhythm against Rhodey's palm. Bruce kisses him over her shoulder and Pepper buries her face in Bruce's neck, taking in heat and the breathy scenet of olive oil soap. When she pulls back, he's watching her, Jim's eyes are closed, and the whole world drops into her belly, silent and hot. 

They fall out of the club, clinging to one another. Pepper calls a driver from the Stark fleet, orders him to drive around the city, and shuts him out. Bruce eats her out under the dim overhead light of the car while Rhodey strokes her breasts, her chest, her neck, pressing his thumb to the hollow of her throat for just a second before dipping down and dragging his teeth over her ear. 

Pepper comes hard, rushing into the end with her fingers digging into Bruce's scalp and Rhodey murmurs above her, telling her how beautiful she looks, how much he wants her, how much she makes him think of home.

 

 

"Where is he again?" Bruce wipes dirt from his forehead, only succeeding in getting more across his face. His garden is expanding from balcony to balcony, rich tomato plants taking over their terracotta pots, strawberries which will bloom like a taunt on Pepper's windowsill. 

"DC. Negotiating. He'll be back on the third."

"That's a good day." 

Pepper nods. Offers him a beer. "Yeah. It is." 

 

 

_the path to heaven runs through miles of clouded hell_


End file.
